The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said 23,059 telecom subscribers changed their service providers in June, the highest monthly figure in seven years.
It disclosed this in its latest Monthly Telecom Industry Statistics. The NCC initiated this activity in May 2013 when subscribers’ complaints of unfair treatment from their service providers reached the roof top.
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The newest report said 9mobile topped the table of service providers that received the highest incoming subscribers in June. It had 10,964 new subscribers from other three big operators: MTN, Glo and Airtel.
9mobile was followed by Airtel Nigeria which got 9,142 new subscribers. MTN Nigeria had 2,667 new subscribers while the least was Glomobile with 286 new subscribers.
In May, 11,868 subscribers ported their lines, and 9mobile was leading with 6,304 subscribers ditching other networks for it. Airtel, MTN and Glo had 3,524 subscribers, 1,756 subscribers and 284 subscribers respectively.
Reacting, president of the Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Engr. Olusola Teniola, said the increase in porting could be from old Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) users to GSM operators that are rolling out 4G networks as well as those that usually port for ego reasons.
Teniola said the 23,059 subscribers represented a fraction of the total number of 68m subscribers adding that the process had not been fully utilised. He also said the poor economy could be another reason.
To stop or reduce porting, Teniola said operators should explore the Nigerian National Broadband Plan 2020-25 (NNBP) for more investment. They should also improve Quality of Service (QoS) and Quality of Experience (QoE), especially on internet access.
